The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service announced it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays, but will continue delivering packages six days per week, starting Aug. 1.
Unless forbidden to do so by Congress, which has moved in the past to prohibit five-day-a-week delivery, the agency for the first time will deliver mail only Monday through Friday. The move will save about $2 billion a year for the Postal Service.
The decision also will result in the elimination of the equivalent of 22,500 positions at the agency.
“People will say this is a responsible decision — it makes common sense,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said at a news conference Wednesday. Donahoe said he would like any job reductions to occur through attrition.
As the digital era has evolved, the number of standard mail pieces delivered has dropped more than 19 percent in the past five years, and the number of first-class mail pieces delivered has dropped more than 24 percent.
The Postal Service has cut its workforce by 168,000, or 24 percent, since 2006 and cut $15 billion in annual costs.
“The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation,” Donahoe said at a news conference. “The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. Mail.”
The postal service plans to continue Saturday delivery of packages, which remain a profitable and growing part of the delivery business. Post offices would remain open on Saturdays so that customers can drop off mail or packages, buy postage stamps, or access their post office boxes, officials said.
The Postal Service said that it suffered a $15.9 billion net loss for fiscal 2012, which ended Sept. 30.
In a statement, National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association president Jeannette Dwyer said the USPS announcement amounts to “yet another death knell” for the quality of service provided by the agency.
“For decades, the Postal Service has upheld a personal and professional standard of service, delivering to every household nationwide six days a week,” Dwyer said. “To erode this service will undermine the Postal Service’s core mission and is completely unacceptable.”
